10 Stupid Attempts At Rebranding Famous Comic Characters

8. Teenage Iron Man

A recurring form of executive meddling is insisting superheroes have 'kid appeal'. This goes back to Batman in 1940: Robin was introduced so children could have someone to relate to in the franchise. Stan Lee took this further by making Spider-Man a teenager, which then set the stage for several other teen heroes. So it's no surprise that when Marvel tried to revamp Iron Man, some genius decided to make him a teenager as well. To make things short: in the series The Crossing, Old Tony was mind-controlled to be evil so the Avengers went to the past to get Teen Tony to beat him. Old Tony eventually sacrifices himself, and then Teen Tony then became Teen Iron Man. Given that fans already hated The Crossing for making Iron Man look like a douche and then killing him, Teen Tony's introduction wasn't looked on fondly. One has to wonder why Captain America, who spent the 60's crying about leading a ten-year-old to his death, would basically force a teenager to be a superhero. Not to mention the fridge logic of how the Avengers didn't rewrite their own history by removing their founder from his current timeline. Marvel rectified this in the Onslaught arc when the Avengers get transported to another Earth and Tony is replaced with Franklin Richards' conception of who he is. Baiscally, comics are dumb.